Whittier harbormaster withholds acceptance of new floats over concrete damage

Whittier's harbormaster is holding off on accepting the town's new harbor floats because small pieces of concrete have been popping out of their surface, and he worries the state could come after its share of the money.

"I will not accept floats that are subpar," Harbormaster Dave Borg told the city's Port and Harbor Advisory Commission on Tuesday.

The floats are the walkways boats tie up to. The project replaced three of the harbor's 11 float systems, including 42 slips and the water, fire and walkway lines that run along them, according to NOAA filings. The city's funding plan set a $9 million budget, split between a state harbor grant and city bonds.

The pop-outs started showing up in mid-December last year, Borg said, and looked like freeze-thaw damage. Core samples may have found moisture and aggregate, the gravel mixed into concrete, below the thin top layer, he said. Borg said engineers who reviewed the contract told him it called for the right concrete, but "I'm not certain that that concrete necessarily met that spec."

Float maker Bellingham Marine says the damage is cosmetic, according to Borg. "I'm not 100% positive it's cosmetic, but that's just me and I'm not a concrete expert," he said. The company has been running freeze-thaw tests on epoxies and coatings at a lab in Michigan, and it recently patched pop-outs on H float, which Borg said will be watched through the winter.

The state money is part of why he's waiting. If the city accepts floats that fall short, Borg said, the state could say they aren't what was bid and tell the city, "You owe us $4.6 million." The state grant was set to expire in June, but Borg said he asked for an extension and the state moved the deadline to July 2027.

The city doesn't hold the warranty with Bellingham, Borg said. General contractor Harris Sand and Gravel, which bought the floats, does, and it has withheld about $700,000 from Bellingham so far. Borg said lawyers will review a possible plan to close out the Harris contract and enter a bond-type arrangement with Bellingham.